


The Jailer of Tenkai

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 12:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in Heaven, the past catches up to Goujun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jailer of Tenkai

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Despina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Despina/gifts).



> Thank you to rroselavy for the beta! Written for the 2012 Dreamwidth yuletide_smut Saiyuki giftfic exchange.

Footsteps echoed down the long, cold corridor. Fluorescent bulbs hummed and flickered as though they relayed warning signals of cosmic doom from quasars, or half-hearted attempts to communicate from dark matter. Beyond the walls, a saurian bellow reverberated through stone and cement.

“Old furnace ducts!” General Enrai grunted, bestowing an unctuous smile on King Goujun. “Heat roars through them.”

As bristles lifted the scales on the dragon-king’s neck, he slipped on a pair of sunglasses to conceal his eyes.

“Your office.” The door was flung open wide with a flourish, but the kami remained in the hall while King Goujun entered. Only a quick shift of weight kept him from stumbling over a wooden chair set just past the door’s trajectory and under his eye level.

The room was barely large enough to fit a desk, a small metal filing cabinet, and two chairs — three, if the door was closed. Decades of water-stains striated the walls, like lines on a geological survey. The marks erupted, as the slightly fresher air blew in, with clouds of spores. Mouse urine, ancient traces of pine cleaner and stale cigarette smoke topped off the nostril-piercing funk. The office was bunker-gray and lit with the same buzzing, flickering fluorescents.

“Your corporal can order any necessary stationery supplies.”

Goujun nodded. He slipped off his gauntlet and the thick hide glove which lined it and stretched the tendons in his hand, letting light play off the edges of his talons. With a smart pivot on his heel, he issued his first command, “Show me your office.”

“Mine?” Again, the tongue darted out across dry lips. The smile never slipped a millimeter.

Goujun slid his pinky across the desk with a lazy grace. Another deep gouge marred its much-scarred writing surface. “Enrai, is it?”

The kami’s room was several floors above the janitors’ cubbyhole, past staircases tumbling upon staircases, and many blocks to the west, with long corridors streaming after corridors.

“The Minister felt that you would be best situated near the dungeons in order to facilitate smoother interfacing with the …,” Enrai babbled as he trotted to stay ahead of the King’s great strides. He was panting for breath, “… the heretics.”

Behind his sunglasses, Goujun looked at the blue skies beyond the colonnade.

At this level in the western block of the barracks, filigree screens let cooling breezes circulate, along with petals from the many cherry trees. Goujun’s plait of white hair was free to swing around him as he circled and surveyed the room, taking in the fine lacquer furnishings, soft carpets and coromandel screens which added opulence to comfort.

“This will do.” He removed his other glove and gauntlet, setting them on the glossy surface of the desk, next to the tray which held the usual set of an oil lamp, writing implements and a bell.

The general snorted, “Sorry?”

Goujun didn’t spare him a glance. “You’re dismissed.”

He pulled out the red sandalwood chair from behind the desk and dropped into it. The thump resounded through the wooden room.

Enrai’s smile revealed eye-teeth. He let out a strained laugh. “Very well, I will just collect my–”

“No need.” Goujun waved him off. “They will be sent on.”

“But–”

“Leave.”

Enrai retreated, bowing like a puppet, out the door.

With a sigh that uncoiled from the pit of his belly, Goujun leaned back. The seat was sturdy, comfortable, a well-made piece of furniture.

The next second he was back on his feet, exploring the luxurious office. Under the carved railings of the balcony which surrounded his new office, a lagoon had been separated from the main river. Pines and willows leaned over sandstone banks, skillfully shaped into natural-looking steps. The water surface, a hematite-silver sheen over inky depths ornamented with flames of red, pink and white waterlilies,shivered under a ballet of dragonflies which hovered and flit in pursuit of mosquitoes and their larvae.

Inside, sweetly scented camphor boxes held documents, scrolls and files Enrai had seen fit to retain. The only information about Tenkai provided to the dragon-king prior to his departure from the Palace of the Western Seas had been the cursory diplomatic training every official received, supplemented by some very abbreviated notes on standard protocols and procedures recorded by his predecessor, so Goujun examined each new document carefully. These were particularly interesting in terms of certain requisitions and allocations of funds for a secret military project, including experiments that had been conducted on the heretics. Goujun started to create a list of questions.

Hours later, he set down his dossiers, removed his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. The oil lamp cast an orange glow. Moonlight shone through the open windows, through which cooling and fresher air swept. Frogs croaked in the lagoon.

He was hungry and curious, so he picked up the bell and rang it experimentally. It had a pleasant tone and reverberated clearly, but wasn’t loud enough to attract attention from anyone standing much further than the rooms just next to his.

A full minute later, a fair-skinned man with a messy mullet, smudged glasses and an even grubbier lab-coat peered around the door. A cigarette dangled off his lip. This, together with raised eyebrows, signaled astonishment. “Hallo. You aren’t Enrai.”

“No.”

“I thought I heard a bell. I just never expected anyone to expect an answer.”

“You are–?” Goujun scowled.

“Pretty much the only person up and about at this hour.” The stranger shuffled in wearing a pair of toilet slippers and carrying such an armful of scrolls, they spilled over his arms like a barmaid’s bosom. Without permission, he shambled over to a side table, dumped his burden across them and stretched his back with a sigh of relief. “Nothing ever changes in Tenkai. This place is the essence of stability, security and stagnation. Since you appear to have taken over this office, your power and prestige must be such that our esteemed General Enrai needs to kowtow to you and even the Minister must bite his tongue. Either that, or you must be very brave and very doomed.”

Goujun listened and waited in his chair.

The kami gave a low whistle. “That powerful, huh?

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Without waiting for an answer, he patted the pockets of his lab-coat, extracted a crumpled pack of cigarettes, pulled one out with his lips, lit it with the last smoldering remains of his previous smoke, after which the spent butt sailed through the screen into the lagoon like a streak of meteor.

“So, given that nothing ever changes in Tenkai,—" the kami's eyes narrowed as he sucked on the cigarette, "the questions are: who are you and why you? Why here? Why now?”

King Goujun’s eyes narrowed. “I asked you a straightforward question, soldier, and I expect a straightforward answer. Who are you?”

“Tenpou — Field-Marshal Tenpou, if you want to be formal about it, although since I have no idea who you are, I will point out that this is intended strictly as a matter of common courtesy.”

“Well, Field-Marshal Tenpou, I am Goujun, Dragon-King of the Western Seas, which outranks your title and makes me your superior officer. In the future, you will address me as 'Brigadier-General, Sir' or ‘Your Royal Majesty’ in the company of others, or as ‘Sir’ when we are alone. As army staff, I expect you to answer my summons day or night, respond to every order I issue to you, and to remain on duty until I dismiss you. Understood?”

“Yes … sir.” The dirty glasses hid expression in the eyes. "Was there something you wanted, sir?"

That made the dragon think, “Yes. Find the heretic, Homura, and bring him to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Frogs _bri-i-iiked_. Tenpou remained.

A minute later, Goujun looked up from the notes he was scratching. “Any problems, Field-Marshal?”

“No … well, yes, but … right now, sir?”

“Right now. My orders are to be undertaken immediately.”

Tenpou’s cigarette bobbed upward.

“I wouldn’t suppose you would happen to have a key lying around anywhere?" His voice shifted tone, clipping words short like they wore stubby shoes, "Specifically, the key to the prison. Can’t really fetch prisoners without it.”

Goujun’s talons reflexively rapped on the arm of his chair. “There are no jailers you can wake up?”

“That would be you, sir.”

It took only a moment for that to sink in. Goujun reacted by standing up and rummaging through the desk drawers, but the only keys he found had the delicacy of a woman’s necklace. He held them out with a questioning look.

Tenpou took one look at the tinkling ring and whistled, shaking his head. “To His Imperial Majesty, the Jade Emperor’s wine-stores, I expect, sir.”

“And you would know that, how?”

“Some of Enrai’s gifts to senior court officials were of an unusually fine vintage, sir. I always wondered how he expropriated them, sir.”

Goujun continued to rifle through Enrai’s oddments, a jumble of sporting pool vouchers and bookie stubs, some for considerable sums. He found a stack of magnetic cards for ‘preferred membership’ at various clubs. There were a lot of time-killer toys involving mazes and ball-bearings, an unused seal, a dead spider, a few fishing flies.

“Perhaps they are in the original office you were meant to have,” Tenpou piped up. “Sir.”

Goujun stopped shuffling. Even though the constant reiterations of ‘sir’ were at his specific behest, he shot a cool look of appraisal at the field-marshal. Tenpou continued to rock on his toilet slippers, occasionally blinking. The dragon strode out behind his desk and from the room, “Follow.”

As they proceeded to the dungeons, he issued more orders. “General Enrai’s possessions are to be returned — those which truly belong to him. The others are to be returned to their proper owners.”

“Yes, sir.” Tenpou nodded, keeping pace.

“I require a complete inventory and for all the materials collected from the room which was meant to be my office and brought upstairs.”

“All of them, sir?”

Goujun stopped mid-stride. “I suppose it depends on what we find there, doesn’t it?”

Tenpou removed his glasses, breathed on them and cleaned them on the corner of his lab coat. “Apart from the keys? — I suspect there’s not much chance of finding anything useful at all.”

Goujun saw sharp eyes through the clean glasses, “Is it regular practice to leave the keys to the prison cells lying around in an empty, unguarded, unlocked room?”

Tenpou chuckled.

“Explain.”

“Where would a rescued or escaped prisoner go, sir? If they rebel or conspire against the Jade Emperor and his edicts, they are executed and caught forever in ‘the worlds of endless suffering’, sir.”

“Are you saying if there were no bars on the prisons, these prisoners would remain in their cells?”

“I’m saying their options are already limited, although …” Tenpou’s focus drifted off, as they started down the next staircase. “I suppose the concept of suffering is relative. There could be a point where suffering in Heaven becomes so intolerable that spinning around the cycles of reincarnation has more appeal.”

“Your thoughts border upon dangerously seditious, soldier.” Goujun snorted, stiffening his spine.

“They’re just thoughts, sir. They’re made of air, sir. They don’t do anything except exist, sir.”

Goujun continued to glide down the spiraling stairs.

“Just wait until you pass a few more centuries.” He heard Tenpou mutter. “There isn’t much else around here.”

The king stopped short. He had solutions for this, “I need an organizational outline of the Imperial Court staff. I have one of the army, put together by my predecessor, but I need one of the executive and administration. The information must eventually include all names, ranks, functions, relationships, years of service and any details which might be salient for military purposes, but we can start with a basic chart. Can you undertake this?”

“Is that an order, sir?”

“No, it’s a request. I need someone who is both willing and capable.”

“Capable, sure. That’s what field-marshals are for, sir. Willing? — It sounds like make-work, sir.”

“If you have a better idea how I might become acquainted with Tenkai, I should like to hear it.”

Tenpou nodded. Then, after a pause long enough that any reasonable person would have thought the discussion was over, he said, "For starters, next time I would ask for directions to the nearest elevator."

Goujun peered over the edge of the staircase. Their spiral disappeared into gloomy depths far below. "Was there a reason this was not mentioned to me before?"

For the first time, Goujun caught a look of something real in Tenpou's eyes.

"This was the way Enrai brought you upstairs?" Tenpou asked.

"Yes."

"Okay, the first thing you need is some maps. Welcome to Tenkai, the only Heaven which mimics creation by dooming us to wander in endless circles."

 

 

 

It was unavoidable; the first time King Goujun had the heretic brought into the bright light of day, there was a crowd, and there never were days with the sort of gentle rain and fog common on the coast, so Homura was forced to endure an audience as he stood with his head bowed and turned into the shadows, while his eyes watered fiercely from photosensitivity. Goujun, an albino, understood this.

Some of these gods were friends of Enrai's, a certain type of courtier the dragon recognized from the Palace of the Western Seas. In a place where — as Tenpou had so helpfully pointed out upon the dragon-king's arrival — nothing ever changed, it was impossible to do anything new or unusual without creating a spectacle, and the gardens were filled with crowds of onlookers who had come out to drink wine under the plum blossoms or cruise down the Canal on one of the many barges.

"Looks like your fine young boy is overcome with emotion." One of Enrai's friends leaned over and said with a gush from which Goujun instantly, reflexively recoiled. "Fairly weeping with joy."

Something about Enrai and his entourage made Goujun's scales feel as though they were being flicked with a thousand filleting knives — never hard enough to cause them to flake off, but always on the verge.

Then the stranger murmured something which spontaneously caused the dragon-king's talons to unsheath. "Lucky you. I wouldn't mind having such a strong and handsome young fellow grateful to me for his liberty."

Goujun pulled his own sunglasses from his eyes and passed them over to the heretic. "It takes a while to readjust when you've lived in darkness for years. Until you're ready, wear these."

Homura stared at the sunglasses, refusing to take them.

"That's an order, soldier."

Even with the eye protection, the heretic still flinched whenever he had to turn toward the sun. Dark glasses only helped alleviate the worst symptoms. They never took the pain and visual distortion away completely. Goujun knew exactly how the intense light of the sun could make one long for a quick return to the shadows.

"Homura, come." He ordered the heretic, who followed with sauntering gait and no haste. The situation made the dragon-king intensely uncomfortable, a sensation which was becoming all too familiar to him in Tenkai.

Homura made no effort to hide his resistance to taking orders. Goujun understood this as well, since he had his own considerable measure of pride. But there was something else about this particular heretic, with his glossy hair, black as a crow's wing, and his odd-coloured eyes.

Even the heretic's dossier was challenging as reading material went: Homura had been pulled off the streets as a feral boy of indeterminate age, but probably younger than five, filthy, unable to speak, voraciously hungry and with no evident sentience, but filled with animal cunning. He was brought to a home for young orphaned males where he was bathed, groomed and dressed; fed and taught common manners, customs and basic law along with speech; given a metal cot, a thin mattress, pillow, sheets, pillowcase and scratchy woollen army surplus blanket to sleep in a dormitory room with eleven others; provided with chores, an education, and work projects designed to lead him down a career path. He was held in detention multiple times for failing to do homework satisfactorily; birched on at least three separate occasions: once for fighting with another inmate, once for stealing food from the kitchen, once for a reason that had been left unexplained but looked like abuse for the shits-and-giggles of it … Goujun eventually gave up reading the file as it left him emotionally exhausted.

Originally, Goujun had chosen to liberate Homura as his contingency champion in case Li Touten's faith in Nataku should prove an overestimation, since it would not do to leave Heaven more or less defenseless. Homura was certainly strong enough for this. His limiters had to be forged from metals of such high specific gravity, they almost caused space to implode.

But then, Goujun's plans had changed: he, more than anyone, knew the difference between a furnace blast and the roar of a giant lizard. He wanted a closer look at the project which Enrai and his associates were ostensibly developing under the auspices of creating a secret weapon for the Jade Emperor. Homura's familiarity with the caverns and dungeons which underpinned Tenkai made him a perfect agent for this type of reconnaissance.

As they walked back toward King Goujun's office together, the dragon-king quietly informed him, "I have a job for you — one best undertaken at night."

Homura rolled his eyes.

Goujun suppressed a sigh, unwilling to show that he felt a little hurt at having his efforts constantly rebuffed.

The moment they walked into the office, however, the dragon-king was stunned to find himself pulled into the heretic's arms and kissed. He was so gobsmacked, he could've dropped through the floor and into the dungeons with shock.

Homura was very good at kissing, even if there was far more force and insistence in the use of tongue than Goujun prefered. By the time Goujun recovered enough from his shock to pierce Homura's lip with his fang, which earned a yelp, and gave the dragon enough of an advantage to push off his monstrously strong attacker, he was breathless and flushed.

"Ha! I was thinking of getting a stud put in there." Homura gingerly touched the newly pierced hole with his thumb and licked off the blood with his tongue in a way that left Goujun feeling both outraged and weak in the knees. "That's fine. I don't mind it rough, and I can handle anything you dish out."

Then he started shucking his clothes every which way, starting with the ludicrous cape. His tight, black tank top did little to cover the beautifully defined muscles in his arms, across his torso and down his abdomen, but it was even more of a treat when he peeled it over his head and exposed his skin.

King Goujun shook his head, confused. "What do you think you're doing?"

Homura sat down on top of the glossy side table to pull off a boot. "My 'night job', right?"

Goujun was incapable of turning paler than he already was, but he felt the blood drain from his face. "No, you've misundersto–"

"Isn't this what you 'liberated' me for, Mr. Exiled Gay Dragon-King of the Western Seas?"

Goujun felt fear crawl up his spine, while shame concentrated like hot, bubbling fat in his stomach. It robbed him of his capacity for speech. He wondered just how much of his story preceded his journey from the Palace of the Western Seas.

Homura was more than happy to make up for the missing chit-chat. As he unzipped his jeans, he said, "Sorry, you won't be my first, but at least I can make up in experience what I lack in virginal whoop-de-doo. If that's a problem for you — well, what are you going to do about it? Imprison me? Ha-ha!"

Goujun picked up the tank top and threw it at him. "Get dressed and get out."

"Awwww!" Homura taunted. "Mad because the back door's already been breached? I suppose I can always pretend, like a girl faking her orgasm, 'Ooh, Mr. Dragon-King, what a big cock you have!'"

Goujun tried to recuperate some dignity. "You're sorely mistaken. I had no intention of exerting such — The night job was a real one: a mission. I thought you might appreciate the trust and respect."

"You're joking, right? You think I've just been sitting around waiting for a chance to prove myself to you? Your lot stuck me in prison, Mr. Brigadier-General-in-charge-of-licking-the-Emperor's-Imperial-Arse. Did you think I was begging to serve a bunch of corrupt tyrants?"

"You would rather I raped you?"

"Pfft, so much righteous indignation! Very refined, but misplaced. At least with the sexual favours arrangement, I could fuck your scaly white ass, or get it up mine. That’s better than a mission any day."

King Goujun bodily pushed Homura through his office door, a task managed only by virtue of the heretic's lack of interest in lingering. Then he picked up the discarded clothing and threw them after him. He slammed the door behind him and was just about to stagger behind his desk and collapse in the chair, when he caught sight of a huge pile of scrolls, and the top of a greasy mullet.

"Oh, bloody hell, what are you doing here?"

"Well, hello to you, too, sir, and I brought your maps," Tenpou said, waving a scroll.

Goujun was tempted to ask for one of his cigarettes. It seemed a little pointless since all he had to do for smoke was breath back some of his own fire. At least it gave him something to do in order to fill the awkward silence.

"If I may say so, sir. Your offer was too good for that guy. His loss."

"Oh, stow it, Marshal. If I wanted sunshine blown up my pucker, I would damned well —” Goujun brushed at a fresh crease in his coat. “Actually, I have no idea what I would do. Homura saw through me and called me on it. Serves me right for trying to buy friendship with favours."

"God forbid anyone should expect friendship and loyalty in exchange for favours." Tenpou leaned back in the dragon-king's chair and stuck his toilet slipper-shod feet up on the fancy red sandalwood desk. "You make it sound like there's something the matter with that."

"Isn't there?"

"You mean, as opposed to anal-raping your way into their hearts? The guy's seriously messed up."

"Okay. I hear you now, Tenpou. Thanks."

"In the meantime, you have a mission."

Goujun's eyes narrowed at this sound of the other shoe dropping. "I'm curious about what's going on in our dungeons."

"As am I, sir."

"Can I ask you something, first?"

"Fire away."

"How much did you know about my past before I got here?"

The drops from the water-clock just beside the lagoon became particularly loud.

Tenpou rolled his eyes. "This posting clearly wasn't a reward for services rendered."

Outside, clearly within view of the window, Homura was chatting with a pretty young goddess, leaning over her like a bee in clover.

"I was expected to marry the bride my father chose for me." Goujun finally explained. "And I did not."

"She was unattractive, was she?"

"Not at all. There was absolutely nothing the matter with her."

"Weren't quite ready to settle down?"

Goujun shrugged. That wasn't it either.

Tenpou took his feet back off the desk and stood up, sending piles of scrolls bouncing onto the floor. As he leaned over to pick them up, he said, "Rumours were the union was intended to align your family with the Guardian of the North, but that your father and prospective father-in-law caught you _in flagrante delicto_ with a merman, a very attractive fellow. Was that what happened?"

"Yes, that's about it." Goujun ran his talons through his fringe. "In other words, everyone knows everything."

"Not really," said Tenpou, stacking the freshly retrieved scrolls onto the side-table. "I'm actually out of the loop. I had to dig to find anything out, something I'm quite accomplished at, while we're on the subject of secret missions. But it does appear to be common news in amongst certain groups of individuals, here."

"Enrai?"

"Hmm."

King Goujun closed his eyes. Behind their lids, he saw his former companion clearly, as though he were still alive and in the vast empire of Shangri-La, his skin phosphorescent against the black waters of the westerns seas, the silver scales of his tail shimmering like a thousand stars or a thousand drops of water. Goujun had loved the way his long, golden hair floated in the water like weeds, and how his eyes were blacker than the mud at the bottom of the lava flows, but his companion was otherwise a fairly plain fellow as mermen went. So Tenpou was wrong there.

There had been friendship — not of the unnatural sort, forced together through duty and common purpose, but through compatibility, happiness and spontaneity. In his company, Goujun had nothing to prove, but was allowed to simply be. Their moments of congress extended naturally from an intense joy at the way their bodies rippled and flowed in synchronization with each other as they hunted and played, slick and sliding with the warm water all around and in them.

The only thing Goujun regretted was getting caught, since the penalty was the loss of his companion's life and no chance of meeting with him again. The sadness he endured with every memory of that made the subsequent irritations of his new post in Tenkai pale in comparison. It was as though his feelings had grown numb. For awhile, it seemed as though there was a chance they would spark up again after he took on the project of Homura. Something about the heretic had brought out the gentler side of his nature, if dragons could be said to have anything gentle within them. He had wanted to give him a better life — to find relief from bitterness.

Goujun looked out the window. From the look of the pantomime proceeding off his balcony, Homura had already succeeded in winning over the young goddess' affections. That had to be a record.

"There's always the possibility that Homura is part of the conspiracy," Tenpou said, leaning over his shoulder to peer outside at the same view.

Startled, Goujun straightened up. "Ridiculous. He is despised. Why would they–?"

"What? Take him on? Use him? Maybe because he has a believable cover story. Maybe because they work in close proximity to his former cell."

They watched, fascinated, as Homura leaned over and planted a suggestion in the young goddess's ear. It must've gone over well because, as she giggled, he slipped his arm over her shoulder and led her away in the direction of the sleeping chambers.

In that moment, the heretic did something which caused both King Goujun and Tenpou to let out tiny astonished gasps. He stared directly at the dragon-king and gave a little toss of the head, as though to say, "See? See what I just did?"

"I take back what I said," Tenpou's shoulders shook with silent laughter. "I think you hooked him after all."

The dragon-king snorted, "But I never wanted to hook him."

"If you say so, sir."

"You don't believe me."

"It doesn't matter what I believe."

This was too much for Goujun, who found Tenpou's deduction too much of a leap. "I am not looking for another– Since when is my love life anyone's business?"

He already knew the answer to that. In Tenkai, where nothing changed, little things became enormously important. Ritual and routine stood in for innovation and unorthodoxy. Anything unusual fed speculation.

The dragon-king was already different enough by virtue of being a dragon. His personal history provided salubrious titillation in a time and place where people hadn't felt excited or even interested in centuries. The biggest indicator that one had reached the Empire of Shangri-La was the number of yawns being suppressed throughout its residents. Tenpou was wrong again. It wasn't suffering that caused the gods and goddesses to defy the Emperor and risk the wheel of reincarnation, but boredom.

In that moment, King Goujun knew he was not destined to live long in Tenkai. It was just another way-station, if a luxurious one, and he was just as stuck in it as everyone else.

 

 

_— fin —_


End file.
